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Halloween with Matthew Mead :: Book Giveaway!
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I am so excited to share this fabulous new publication with you today, Halloween with Matthew Mead. Matthew is one of my biggest inspirations. His ideas, styling and photography never cease to amaze me. His latest book is filled with fresh, creative ideas for Halloween decorating and parties. Oh how I would love to be a fly on the wall of one of his shoots! If I was still in college (c’mon it was only 12 years ago) I would beg for an internship with him. While I love Martha dearly, the thing that impresses me most about Matthew is that he creates the ideas, styles and photographs everything himself for his magazines and books! He has a small team that he works with (including his wife), but you can tell from his publications that he gives his magic touch to every page. Wow…am I starting to sound like a stalker? Let’s get on with it. Here are a few peeks of my favorite images from Halloween with Matthew Mead…
FABULOUS, RIGHT?
Lucky for you, we have 4 copies of Halloween with Matthew Mead to give away!
To enter, just leave a comment below and tell us your favorite Halloween tradition or decorating idea!
The winners are:
Comment #68 – Carmen
Comment #6 – Karlee
Comment #3 – Joanna H.
Comment #149 – Ruth Allmart
To learn more about Matthew and his work, please read my interview with him on HGTV Design Happens. You can also visit Matthew’s blog to keep up with his latest projects!
Purchase Halloween with Matthew Mead here!
September 28, 2012
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Going trick or treating with the kids is the best bit of halloween.
Our Halloween tradition is going to the same pumpkin patch every year than everyone picking out their pumpkin then going home and decorating them as a family.
Our Halloween tradition is first pulling out all of our fall/Halloween decor and decoratign the house, and then going to get pumpkins at a cute country pumpkin patch. We love fall!
I love to decorate with different size pumpkins. We also love to back and carve pumpkins all together.
Halloween is my favorite holiday for decorating. Orange and black, oh my. I love decorating my porch. I toggle between a vintage theme some years, to a spider theme, complete with life size spiders, web and life size person (newspaper and gauze) wrapped in the web….as my kids get older, it is fun to make the shift to scary.
Oh the decorating the house.
Decorating the mantel, entry, house and the fun activities.
Going trick or treating with our kids STILL is the most fun tradition of Halloween. Times have changed since we were all kids but I am so thrilled that we still have continued this wonderful tradition 🙂
One weekend in October, we always go to Grant’s Farm, where Anheuser Busch raises their clydesdales, and take pony rides, hayrides, play games and dance the night away. The kids LOVE it and look forward to it every year.
I look forward to decorating my large chalk board I made that hangs in our entry hallway. My husband added a power outlet behind it so I love adding lights or all sorts, the outlet also has a timer so it’s perfect as a hallway night light also. Thanks for introducing me to Michael, love his style also. K
my favorite tradition is going to the local pumpkin patch & letting my kids go hog wild. they run around looking at all the different pumpkins till they find their perfect one. i let each of them pick one for themselves then we decide on picking a large one for the family. we go home & start carving them out & get super messy in the process…stuff life is made of <3
I love to carve pumpkins!!!!! Halloween is my favorite holiday ever!
I love to carve pumpkins with my kids. We put them out on the front porch!
I love seeing all the little kids dressed up and trick or treating. We don’t have many littles in our neighborhood so the ones we do get are a treat.
From the photos you shared here, it seems Matthew’s stuff is more accessible. Martha seems like such a high bar to attain.
I’d love to say decorating… but our favorite Halloween tradition is stealing the kids’ candy!!!
The whole family dresses up and takes our son trick or treating. It’s a tradition for my husband to always be scarier than the year before. halloween is all of our favorite holliday.
I love using black spray paint with silver glitter spray paint atop… My kids love the way it makes things look creepy and classy at the same time! And they love the bleeding taper candles from Yankee Candle!
Our favorite Halloween tradition is playing “You’ve Been Boo’d” with our neighbors and having some kiddos over for a fun Halloween play date! The house is always decorated the entire month of October! The kiddos love it!!
Love pumpkin carving with the family!
We love getting dressed up and going to a family friendly halloween party every year. That and trying to find new things to do with a pumpkin that don’t include knifes
I love decorating my front room like a bat cave for Halloween. It is so much fun to open the door to little trick or treaters and see their eyes get big!
I visited Matthew’s blog and WOW, thanks for linking up to him. I love finding new gems on the internet!
Paige
We love going trick or treating and i love decoration my mantle for all the holidays and filling my frames with printables!
I love Halloween and could use some fresh inspiration from the expert! We throw an annual Halloween party every year and my favorite thing is our giant PVC pipe skeleton that greets our guest!
Pumpkin carving contest….and everyone gets a trophy. 🙂
carving pumpkins is our most fun tradition, by far. But we do not just carve triangle eyes and zig zag mouths 🙂 The kids get to pick, and we’ve done everything from Thomas the Train, to Yoda, to Monster High dolls. and we love to bake the seeds too!
I love to decorate my house and front porch. Would love a copy of the book for inspiration.
My favorite Halloween tradition is going to the pumpkin patch and making pumpkin pasties for my teenagers!
I love Halloween! I love the colors and decorating. Pumpkin carving, homemade costumes, apple picking, corn mazes,Halloween crafts,Halloween movies and shows, and of course Trick or treating. My favorite part of the year!
Carving and painting pumpkins!!!
We love to pick out our pumpkins and make an evening out of carving them.
Making roasted butternut squash soup before a night of trick-or-treating.
I love lots and lots of pumpkins! I even have my husband doing his specialty carvings to use to decorate. In the past he has done many pumpkin carvings including Mickey Mouse in Fantasia, Jack Sparrow, Hogwarts Castle from Harry Potter, plus many more fun and scary designs. Halloween is absolutely one of my very favorite holidays!
Halloween…oh the joys of fall! Love carving the pumpkins and hearing the little ones giggle when you give ’em a handful of candy!!!
Homemade costumes, pumpkins and CANDY!
Love this giveaway! My favorite Halloween tradition is answering the door for trick-or-treaters. I remember doing it when I was a kid, and now I love doing it every year with my kids!
Costume contest with the inlaws and witches brew—-homemade rootbeer.
I always loved making ghosts out of flattrened soda cans with my students.
Dressing up with the little one and baking halloween goodies!
Halloween is one of my FAVORITE Holidays. Every year, the kids and I pick out a light up pumpkin at the store which goes to our collections of pumpkins we put out on the front porch . We have about 10 so far and it is our family tradition together. By the time the kids move away……… we will have plenty!!!
We also LOVE to decorate the house from top to bottom and get as creative as we can. We are always looking for new ideas for around the inside as well as outside of the house. Getting dressed up is another BIG thing in our house as we bear no expense to look great on that magical night! My husband and I dress up and party every year with friends as a crazy group to see who wins for best dressed. This will be our 5 year. We have so much fun!!!!!
We always make chili that night for dinner and roast pumpkin seeds as well. Cant wait for another fun night as we are starting to unpack our decorations and getting ready for the funniest Halloween season yet~
BOO to YOU and yours~
My favorite Halloween tradition is decorating our three car garage bay like a haunted house!! We have the trick or treaters go through it to get their candy at the end. Everyone loves it and it’s always a huge hit!
My favorite Halloween tradition is having my nieces and nephew decorate my moms house with all her fun decorations.
We host a Halloween party where everyone brings a pumpkin and we have a carving contest. We eat great food, play sack races, carve pumpkins and drink hot chocolate outside by the fire pit. Lots of fun!!!
My favorite thing about Halloween is watching my daughter share her candy with other kids in town who didn’t get as much as she did. Her thoughtfulness is our greatest Halloween tradition.
Traditionally my dad and I would pick out pumpkins and he would carve them up and I would cook the seeds for us. (Dad loved the carving, he was really artistic with it). Not sure what this year will bring without him. This is my first set of holidays without him. Will need to make new traditions with my husband in honor of my dad.
I love decorating with the cobwebs .. as obnoxious and painfully cliche as they are I MUST use them every year ! And every year I create new halloween themed drinks the serve at the veteran’s bar that I volunteer at .. it helps everyone get in the Halloween spirit and makes it a fun night for every age
I love everything about Halloween! We don’t have a tradition for Halloween but I really like to decorate my house, specially the fireplace and bake cupcakes with my children. They love to decorate the cupcakes with Halloween candy.
My kids love decorating for Halloween. We start in early September. We also enjoy the season by baking and visiting pumpkin farms looking for the perfect pumpkin to carve.
I do love the pumpkin patch…and trick or treating! But my fav is cooking up a huge pot (or two) of ghoul-losh and having friends and family over for dinner.
My favorite traditions is making Halloween decorations with my son and taking him to pick out his costume. This year we are making a monster tree and he wants to be a policeman.
Halloween is our high holy day! We go all the way; with decorations, interior design, handcrafted treats and costumes. It’s a month-long celebration for young and old alike. 🙂
In my house we have a Halloween tradition of going to our local Pumpkin farm, picking out a pumpkin then having a carving contest. Whomever can out do last years winning pumpkin gets a special treat. It’s very surprising how creative kids can be. And it’s great fun!
I love doing a big, fun Halloween themed dinner before we go trick or treating!
We love decorating our front porch…especially after raiding my in-laws fabulous garden for pumpkins, gourds, and corn stalks!
LOVE cooking for Halloween- pumpkin, and more pumpkin.
We love doing a Halloween countdown, using a cute witch figurine we’ve had for many years!
We always trick-or-treat with brothers, sisters, cousins, and grandparents! It’s a fun night for everyone!!
We press apples for cider, carve pumpkins & eat tons of candy!
Cooking with pumpkin and picking and carving pumpkins with our kids!
My favorite is lining the driveway with pumpkins and mums. Pumpkins and mums on the front porch. Hay bales and scarecrow! The inside, there is decor everywhere! Love to decorate!
We join our friends in a pumpkin carving contest. It is the kids favorit activity all year! Of course the trick or treating and candy are loved as well!
WE love Halloween in our house! Favorite decoration…..we have a skull that talks!!! Microphone can be used several feet away so that you never see who is making the skull talk. And you can change how the voice sounds – spooky!!!!!
We decorate outside with pumpkins, straw bales, corn stalks.And bats, ghosts,spiders an d webs.The kids do whats called Trunk or Treat. The malls and churches have you decorate your car trunk and give out treats from there rather than at home!
Our favorite tradition is to go to the pumpkin patch, have a day of fun, then come home, watch It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown while eating the Halloween cookies we baked : )
We host a neighborhood/friends dinner and trick-or-treating party every year at our house. It is so fun to compare the photos from each year and see how much each child has grown. The kids really look forward to it! I didn’t realize that Matthew Mead did all of his styling AND photography! Wow! I would love his new book!!! Thanks!
Our home gets a candy shop make-over every year 🙂 one our dear boys is a 11/1 baby so it started as a small thing and has grown over the last 6 years!
I love, love, love my displays of mercury glass pumpkins and owls. They are classic, spooky and gorgeous all at the same time. I really heart all my halloween decor-its the first real holiday of the fall season. Its nice to change up the decor after the long, hot summer!! Gets my in the mood for all the fun to come:)
We like to have a Halloween party for all our nieces and nephews. We completely rearrange the furniture in our tiny house to make a spooky dinner party with one looong table, blacklights, spiderwebs and, of course, gruesome food. Then we have a costume parade for the kids to show off their costumes. They love it, and so do we.
Our family tradition is yummy homemade clam chowder in breadbowls shaped like pumpkins and then delecious carrot cake from the Lion House. My birthday is November 1st so we always have my birthday dinner a day early on Halloween. (then I can eat cake for breakfast on my birthday!)
black and orange and lots of spooky ooky details, what’s not to love?
We have a big Halloween Party, every year, for our kids and all our friends kids. All the kids look forward to the party instead of trick or treating! We do crafts, play games, and even have a small haunted room for the braver kids to walk through! Its a blast and we don’t have to worry about the kids candy being drugged or other horrible things people come up with!
I love trick or treating! It is so fun!
My favourite Halloween tradition is roasting pumpkin seeds. Isn’t that everyone’s fav tradition? I am really enjoying the new trend of painting patterns on pumpkins. Chevron pumpkins are fabulous!!!!!!!
As a family, we absolutely LOVE Halloween! It is such a fun holiday! The memory that sticks out the most is our annual Halloween bash! Every year it’s a different theme! I love receiving ideas from the kiddies and putting it all together with a lil bit of dad & my ideas as well! We invite the neighbors and both sides of our family. It is such a great way to mingle, create new memories, and of course my favorite part —>event planning and decorating!! This year we are creating a Glamoween Witches Ball! Can’t wait!
I love the sassy but classy Halloween designs!!
My favorite thing about Halloween is every year I find the scariest haunted house I can find and go through it. I love haunted houses.
A fun Halloween themed dinner is a must at our house!
Trick or treating with family, going to a pumpkin patch, & roasting pumpkins for lots of yummy treat
s.
I guess just fixing chili and watching old scary movies is one of my fav traditions. Please pick me for the book I love Matthew Mead.
I love trick or treating! Can’t wait for my baby to grow a bit so we can take him!
Our first daughter was born two months before Halloween and I had a “Boo Dinner” from her for the three grandparents living. It was a huge hit and, of course, she was the star! Well, all of the girls are teens now and to this day, we still have our annual “Boo Dinner” for the grandparents even though we only have one now, she loves this tradition every year with the grandkids. I get to try new and fun recipes and now I have help with the decorating. I hope this is one tradition picked up by the kids so I can enjoy it later….
My favorite halloween tradition is lighting our firepit for the night to pass out treats and relax around with our kids after the trick or treating is done.
We try to decorate every corner of the house. This year we are using a lot of old books, lace and spiderwebs and are sticking to the colors cream, silver and black with a ton of added glitter (there is no stopping a determined 9 year old). Then on Halloween we have a HUGE neighbourhood party before we all go trick-or-treating. Can’t wait!!!
I love carving pumpkins! Even though it is messy, it is my favorite!!
My favorite Halloween tradition is roasting pumpkin seeds after we carve the jack-o-lantern. They are SO YUMMY!!!
We have a fun tradition of TRICK-OR-TREATING for canned food for our local food bank. A few days before Halloween, our older kids deliver fliers, door-to-door, explaining what we will be doing on Halloween. Our neighbors are so generous and the older kids (who are to old to trick-or-treat) sometimes get a little candy along the way!
I love to carve pumpkins, don’t like the cleaning!!!
Since having kids (who are now 5 & 4) we have a tradition of coming to my parent’s house a bit early, knocking on the door to surprise them with costumes, then having dinner before heading out to a few neighbors houses to trick or treat.
we used to always go to haunted palouse out in the tiny town of palouse, wa. we moved to wy 2 months ago, so we better find some new traditions!
During the month of October I get to celebrate both Halloween and my birthday! When I was young I used to trick or treat but since I am too old to go I make sure our house has pumpkins in front decorated and lit. I make pumpkin pies and pumpkin bread. I also make cupcakes and decorate them with orange and black frosting, sprinkles, ect. We carve pumpkins, bake the pumpkin seeds to eat. I go all out to make sure every person I know has a fun time celebrating the holiday season starting with Halloween!
We don’t have a specific Halloween tradition. ….. Just LOVE the ambiance of the entire fun filled-trick or treat day! The weather, the costumes, the children giggling . What could be sweeter than all that.
We have a fun Halloween party with my kids and nieces and nephews.
I always make a Halloween wreath.
I love the carving and decorating of the pumpkins.
My favorite Halloween tradition has to be my best friend’s annual Halloween party! For the past 11 years, she and her husband have thrown the most fabulous costume parties. This year will be no exception!
Our favorite Halloween tradition is when all three children help my husband tranform our garage into a dark room where the children have to come up the driveway into the garage to get their candy. They had a ball doing this together.
My favorite Halloween tradition was going to the hous ewhere they passed out fresh made cotton candy because they had a machine .It would always be the last hous eso we could walk hme eating the cotton candy
My favorite thing about Halloween is carving pumpkins. It has evolved to more than that for me, with all the fun thing that you can do!! But still, just the simple carving of the pumpkins with my kids and husband is the best!!
Candy eating!!!!!!! 🙂
Creating memories for my kids is very important to me. My favorite tradition is the Halloween balls I make. Months before I start collecting littlesmall things to put into these balls that end up looking like jack 0 lanterns. Such as a ring, fortune, balloon, money, bracelet, tattoos. I wrap the bulkiest item such as a ring in the middle and start to wrap crepe paper streamer around it. As each layer builds I place another item into it until I’ve used everything I’ve collected. Once done, I glue a face on to it made from construction paper glue it closed and then put one in my kids lunch box, They never know when they will receive it, only that they will at some point during the month of Oct. They are always very excited to get one and it’s a lot of fun for them.
My favorite Halloween tradition is making homemade treats to give away to family and friends. I still love making caramel apples I love Matthew Mead’s creativity. He creates amazing eye candy!
We all love to dress up for the trick or treaters. Every year I make us new costumes.
We love trying to get a family costume theme, we have a large family so this is always fun and entertaining!
Going trick or treating, carving pumpkins and making candy apples!
LOVE going to the pumpkin patch and going to our neighborhood’s fun fall festival!!
My favorite Halloween tradition is making our own costumes, as opposed to buying them.
I love Halloween- and I’m not sure of my favorite tradition. Maybe it will start being having a pot luck dinner on Halloween night over at a neighbors house, then taking the kids Trick-Or-Treating afterwards. Last year was the first year and hopefully it will continue!
We love to plan our family costumes…we have always coordinated our costumes…one year we were a gladiator family; the baby was wearing a lion costume. We haven’t figured out what we are going to do this year…it may be something Avenger…
Can’t wait for Halloween. Love some of these ideas for decorating.
I LOVE pumpkins and use them in every way possible! Thanks for the opportunity to win this fabulous book!
We always have a pumpkin carving party! So fun
This year I’m starting a tradition of making my girls costumes.
My favorite Halloween tradition is going to pick our pumpkins at the pumpkin patch. I get my kiddo all dolled up a fabulous fall outfit and she runs around trying to pick up all the pumpkins that are bigger than she is!
We make homeade costumes. The boys already want to get started. Last year, one was Mater and the other was Mack (the semi hauler) from Cars
My roommate and I have a tradition of decorating our apartment for Halloween the entire month of October, and watching scary movies, saving the best for Halloween night!
Every year my kids and I love baking …making chocolate cover pretzels..etc..that is out traditions…I have small kids so they love getting dresses up and going trick r treating
I love creating cute little treat bags each year for my little nieces – so much to choose from!
I love to decorate for Halloween with pops of black and white zebra, lime green and purple
I love Halloween, black and white zebra, purple and lime green
We have some friends over an hour before trick-or-treating begins for some chili or soup. I have lots of various toppings and I also make hot apple cider. We then go outside, light the firepit and hand out treats. It’s great to fill our bellies with something good to eat before sugar overload!
I love to create fun treats in cute packaging for the kids in my daughter’s class.
My favorite Halloween tradition is going to the pumpkin patch with my kiddos!
Being in AZ, oh how I miss the changing of the leaves and crisp air of the weather. I do still love outings to the pumpkin patch and the joy in my children’s eyes trick or treating and dressing up!
Isn’t Halloween the best? My favorite tradition is waking up early Halloween morning, putting on a fun costume and making a festive breakfast. My kids anxiously anticipate Halloween morning just as much as they do Halloween night!
What an awesome giveaway! My favorite Halloween tradition is from when I was growing up, my mother would always decorate our front porch with fake cob webs. My job was to strategically place all of the spiders on their new cobweb home for the season. At night, it always looked so festively scary!
I would love to have this book! It looks absolutely fabulous! My favorite Halloween tradition is when I was little and all my cousins and I would meet at my grandmother’s house after we Trick-or-Treated. We’d compare…I mean share…candy and play. Those are my best Halloween memories!
We live fog machines and black lights on the porch halliweennught. Only the brave kids come to our door!
We create “halloween town” with a bunch of pumpkins of all different heights. My daughter loves to arrange all the pumpkins just right and turn them on each night after school 🙂
Every year my Aunt has a fun family Halloween party. We carve pumpkins, judge costumes, play games, and eat lots of yummy & scary food. It’s definitely something that we all look forward to every year. Can’t wait!
Thank you!
We live in a neighborhood with a lot of kids. So it is all about decorating the front porch, carving pumpkins and all the cute little trick or treaters we get.
We love to trick or treat with all of our neighbors. One set of neighbors has an open house where anyone is invited to stop in for chili and hot dogs to refuel while trick or treating. This year, I have styled several Harry Potter parties, and I’m hoping to incorporate some of those items into my Halloween decor!
We have a pumpkin carving party! It’s fun to get more creative every year! It turns into a real competitive yet fun event for kids and adults! My favorite part is decorating for the party, though! But that’s my little secret….
Spiders Spiders spiders! The only time they are let inside!
Every year my in-laws have a big Halloween party complete with haunted cemetery in their backyard. It’s so much fun! Thanks for the great giveaway! I know that I’d put this book to good use if I won.
Halloween is my favourite time of year!! My favourite tradition is carving pumpkins and then roasting the seeds (sooo yummy!) I buy all the halloween magazines and this book would be the cherry on top of the cake!!
I love to get branches from the back yard and spray paint them black and silver and put them in a vase and then hang my homemade ghost and bat sugar cookies from the branches….I found some little flashlights at the dollar store and when my children’s friends come to the house or my dinner guests arrive, I turn the flashlights on and put them inside the vase…which is filled with candy corn so u can hide the flashlight….the light shines up on the black and silver branches and makes for a great center piece….at the end of the night the cookies double as a party favor and guests get to “fly” home with their ghost and bat cookies
Pumpkin carving is always my favorite!
Our neighborhood has a big potluck in the evening and then we load all the children on a hay-ride and take them trick-or-treating around the neighborhood. Our houses are too far apart for even the middle schoolers to make it all around the neighborhood and this is a great way to keep the party going.
I’m terribly excited about getting to host the potluck party this year – I love a party!!!
Every year we hold a Halloween party, as its great to get everyone together and bake and dress up. As a family, we also love to trick each other at Halloween with some scary fun!
Hello from France.
Since Halloween is not a long time tradition, we’re still learning to carve the pumpkins and we love to do it !
Contrats for all those beautiful cakes.
We love to tie corn stalks to the porch post and hang decorative ribbons for a festive feel that gives it that halloween feel. Pumpkin carving is a serious sport around here.
I love “Boo-ing” the teachers at the school where I teach at. The teachers and students get so excited to receive a treat and “boo” another classroom!
I love making “spooky” food dishes and carving pumpkins!
I enjoy going to the pumplin patches with the grandkids.
I love to make our own costumes. Since having kids, it’s just a fun thing to do. Since we’re expecting #2 on Halloween (yay!) this year, we went simple, but can’t wait to plan for next year’s!
My favorite thing is going to a pumpkin farm in our area. We pick all kinds of gorgeous pumpkins, eat homemade desserts, have a hay ride, visit he petting zoo and just have an absolutely perfect time at the farm.
I love going to the pumpkin patch with my kids. We make at least two trips each fall.
Pumpkin carving with friends.
Oh my goodness, Michael’s work is incredible. My favorite Halloween tradition has to be going to the pumpkin patch with my family and everyone picking out their pumpkins in just the right size. Capturing the trip each year with my camera helps us remember each individual and year.
One of my favorite traditions when I was a kid was playing a game called snap apple. My mom would use a big knitting needle to poke a hole through an apple, then feed some string through the hole and tie the apple from a hook in the ceiling. Then with your hands behind your back you had to try to get a bite of the apple. It was so hard to do because the apple was hard to grip onto with just your mouth and would keep rolling around your face and then start swinging. We usually ended up in fits of giggles. Good times 🙂 thanks for a chance to win this fabulous book!
For the past 2 years, my kids and I have turned milk cartons into Ghost night lights during the first week of October. This seems to be our newest tradition…they get so excited to create new ones each year and use them in their rooms all month long!
I love the neighborhood party we have before all of the kids go out to trick or treat! There are fun halloween decorations and treats.
My favorite Halloween to tradition is to BOO my neighbors and their children with Halloween treats and goodies. I’m not sure who has more fun the recepient or the person doing the booing. I’m just sad that my youngest just said he may be getting to old for that tradition now that hes in middle school 🙁